Cereal

“What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?” my teacher asks through the screen with a wide smile, clearly proud of herself for the out-of-the-box attendance question. It’s a nice effort, to be fair, to try to engage everyone in the “classroom”, but the seemingly simple issue hits too many memories in my mind and somehow I’m no longer trying to find an answer for it.

~ ~ ~

When my parents immigrated to a completely foreign land, which later became my birthplace, over 20 years ago the only cereal they knew was light, popped grains of rice, sorghum, or millet, made in huge brick ovens and sold in kilograms back in their home country. It was far from the aisles of colorful cereal boxes that they were seeing then, miles away in every way from everything they had ever known.

~ ~ ~

“Are you going to finish it?” my parents ask me carefully, eyeing the cereal box in my hand (differently colored than what they usually buy) with suspicion as we stand in the grocery store. Somewhere inside of me it’s like a switch turned off; I examine the box myself, my eyes skimming over the list of ingredients, the colors, the “artificial flavorings added”; the grinning, predatory mascot that seems to scream to me, “DON’T LISTEN TO THEM.”

“No,” I say, putting the box back in its place among other boxes.

~ ~ ~

The teacher calls on me. “What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?” she asks again.

“We don’t really eat breakfast cereal,” I reply, thinking of huge brick ovens and the popped rice they make.

Fake Plants

My mother loves plants of all sorts- flowering plants, berry bushes, fruit trees, indoor palms and succulents… but perhaps the most surprising of all is that she loves (equally) fake plants.

Personally, I’ve always had something against fake plants. Compared to the real thing that provides oxygen and food, the limp plastic one seems like a total rip-off and waste of money. I understand that there are some times and places where growing an actual plant is just not possible, but can a fake plant really fill up that little space in your heart (or the ground)?

Let’s think about what a fake plant is made of- plastic. Oof. Plants, that usually symbolize a healthy environment and are depicted as a solution to all environmental problems, are now made of plastic. What would happen if a fake plant ended up in the ocean? It wouldn’t matter if it looked like a plant; in essence and in that moment, it is just yet another piece of plastic in an ocean already harmed because of it.

Today it’s fake plants. Tomorrow it could be something else, bigger and worse.

And to even think of keeping these innocent-looking sources of toxicity in our homes is scary. What could we ever gain from mostly useless pieces of plastic that make up only a sliver of aesthetic decor? What all could we lose?

The Robin Couple

We took down the bamboo sun shades two years ago,
And the robin couple that brought grass to our window
Was confused and I saw why
They said birds choose homes once and forever.

The robin couple dropped blades of grass in our balcony
And it seemed like litter, but they were trying to build a nest.
Everyday we threw out handfuls of grass off the ground
Till they finally took the hint and left.

It was two years before I saw them again;
First a strip of leaf and then soft chirps through the window.
There sat the robin couple, or probably their grandchildren,
And I cried, ‘They’re back.’

But they don’t try to build anything anymore.
They only stare in through the window,
Blades of grass hanging limp in their mouths,
And I’m filled with wonder once again.

Where do they live now?
Where did they live then?